The present invention relates to a modular device of tubular plasma source, and more particularly to an inductively coupled high density plasma reactor used in the manufacture of product such as liquid crystal display panel (such as TFT LCD, TN LCD, STN LCD, etc).
In general, plasma source device of high density-plasma system mainly has two kinds: microwave coupled plasma and inductively coupled plasma. The antenna used in inductively coupled plasma is disclosed in Republic Of China in Taiwan""s patent publication No. 345677 (the same as U.S. Pat. No. 5,897,712), which includes a cylindrical spiral coil, a flat plate spiral coil, a dome-shaped spiral coil or a complex coil with several foregoing kinds. It""s design purpose is aimed principally to handle a disk-like semiconductor wafer, thus generally with the antenna set by winding around the cylindrical sidewall or set on the top surface of a dome shaped reactor, so that it is not suitable for processing large or rectangular plate substrate, such as liquid crystal display substrate.
Furthermore, in a plasma processing chamber for big-sized substrate, conventional coil antenna of plasma reactor without modular design needs to be made case by case according to different size of the chamber, and it is difficult to control the uniformity of generated plasma on such substrate. So it is necessary that a uniformity control device or further an auxiliary inductively coupled coil should be installed accompanying with the main coil antenna for uniformity rectification or compensation.
The first object of the present invention is to provide a modular device of tubular plasma source with tubular antennae. By means of variety and unlimited connecting disposition of tubular antennae and radio frequency (RF) power supply, the construction of the high density plasma for treatment of different size substrates can be modulized.
The second object of the present invention is to provide a modular device of tubular plasma source. By means of freely adjusting the interval between tubular antennae and by adopting different coil diameter or coil density for each tubular antenna to generate an uniform plasma density or a variably partial-adjustable plasma density while plasma treating.
The third object of the present invention is to offer a tubular antenna unit. The tubular antenna includes an induction coil being a spiral spring shape and a dielectric sleeve for enclosing the induction coil to assemble into a modular device of plasma source.
The forth object of the present invention is to supply a plasma processing chamber with modular device of plasma source. While installing a multiple modular device of tubular plasma source, it will enable uniformly and completely or variably and partially processing square, rectangular or large substrates.
The modular device of tubular plasma source according to the present invention mainly includes at least two tubular antennae, a RF power supply and a reference potential. The tubular antennae are set side by side for plasma generation, each tubular antenna comprises an induction coil being a spiral spring shape and a dielectric sleeve having a hollow through hole for putting in the induction coil. The RF power supply connects with the induction coils in parallel or in series. The reference potential refers to the RF power supply and connects with the induction coils.